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You’ll All Pay #38

© Joe Conat 2005

Okay, so it’s been months. I could tell you all about why…the goings on in my life, the whirlwind travel to exotic locales, the late nights with squalling infants, the mad pre-dawn rush to a new job…but you don’t care, so let’s get back to it, shall we?

My, my, my…so much has gone on in the past few months, huh? Where to start? So much to say, so little time to say it. Water, water everywhere…

The “nuclear option”. Correct me if I’m wrong on this…even NPR’s coverage seemed spotty and confused at times on this issue. So lemme sum up: The Bush administration wanted to appoint a few anti-activist judges…activist judges, but from Bizarro world, where extremism on the right-hand side of the political spectrum is somehow not activism.

(Which seems to me to be saying: “Bob Dylan is an activist…boo! David Duke is politically active…admirable!” But anyway…)

So, we have these Bizarro-activist judges being nominated to lifetime federal judgeships. And of course the Democrats are “She said the New Deal was a socialist plot!! If you’re gonna put her up there, why don’t you dig up and clone Howard Hughes and Joe McCarthy?! They were right-wing and crazy, too!” And they get their little heads together and say “Screw that! We’ll filibuster!”

Now, it turns out that filibustering has no real legal standing in Congress…it’s just a tradition, right? No rules that allow it, per se.

So the Republicans say “Do that and we’ll outlaw filibustering! Hah! Double hah! Hah hah!”

And the Democrats respond with “You’re big meanie stupid-heads!”

And so forth and so on. Until some weenie dumbasses decide to compromise. And the compromise goes like this: “If you say we can filibuster…we won’t. Unless it’s really, really important. Like, if Godzilla is attacking Capitol Hill and can only be stopped by filibustering, that’s when we can use it.”

Is that right? If so…that’s the stupidest damned thing I’ve ever heard!

Gah! My disgust knows no bounds. What the hell kind of a “compromise” is that? Can you imagine going to war with that attitude? “Okay, you don’t like tanks. You wanna say we can’t use tanks. Okay, here’s what we’ll do…if you just drop it and say we can use tanks…we won’t use tanks. We’ll use the Oscar Meyer Weinermobile.”

*sigh*

So, Deep Throat was Mark Felt. Now, okay…that’s kinda cool, that Deep Throat’s been revealed. I mean…it would have been cooler if it had been somebody that people had heard of, like John Dean or Haldeman or Superman or somebody. But, hey…mystery solved. Deep Throat revealed.

That puts me in mind of some more recent events…like, say…the Downing Street memo?

We now have proof…solid proof from a whole other country and stuff…that Bush was horny for war with Iraq, was planning to remove Saddam Hussein by hook or by crook and was fudging intelligence to bolster that move. Proof! Proof that he lied to the American public, got his cronies to lie, bald-faced, to the American public, and sent our troops to die in Iraq for no other reason than, golly, he sure didn’t like that Saddam Hussein fella.

PROOF!

Is that the front-page story? Is the Washington Post leaping on that nummy news treat and calling it “Watergate II: Deceitful Boogaloo”?

No. Why? I don’t know. I suspect they’re pussies.

Thirty years ago the power of the truth brought down a corrupt administration and, you know what? Everybody cheered. The system works, yo! Excelsior to the Fourth Estate! Booyah!

Nowadays, it’s like the news media’s sort of embarrassed to report on stuff like this. “Well, gee…that seems kind of mean. And we don’t want to rock the boat or hurt anybody’s feelings or anything. And, frankly…we’re kind of scared of the Bush administration. They don’t do anything, but they look at you and shake their heads and they just look so disappointed…”

Gah! My disgust knows no bounds.

Is Bush still pushing his cockamamie Daffy Duck Social Security Plan? Shut up, Bush.

Hey, the Schiavo autopsy came back. Turns out Dr. Frist’s assertion that Terri Schiavo wasn’t brain dead based on her apparent response “to visual stimuli” is completely wrong…Schiavo was blind. Her vision centers were gone. Blind.

Shut up, Frist.

I’m going to come right out and say it: I wanna have Howard Dean’s babies. Lots of them. And all of them will be named Howard. Yes, even the girls.

Since September, 2001 Republicans have taken every opportunity to imply that being a Democrat made one an unpatriotic, anarchic, perverse and twisted, maniacal, homosexual terrorist. During the 2004 election, they came damnably close to calling every Democrat on the planet a Satanist who likes “water sports” with gnus.

But the instant we say “You know where the high road goes? Off a cliff!” and fight back like for like, suddenly we’re big ol’ mean name-callers.

Yeah, Howard Dean said no Republican has ever worked an honest day’s work. And, you know, I winced…every Republican I know works damn hard.

But I hadda give him style points for balls. I laughed and laughed and laughed.

So I say to those Democrats who didn’t step up and back their boy: Screw you, you unpatriotic, anarchic, perverse and twisted, maniacal, homosexual terrorists! Screw you and the Donkey you rode in on!

On the other hand…shut up, Howard Dean.

You know who else I wanna have Democrat babies with? My boy from the home state Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), that’s who. Despite being consigned to the dungeon of Capitol Hill, past that bathroom that hasn’t worked since the first Roosevelt (Teddy) administration, around the corner from the filing cabinet that’s filled with rats’ nests and just down the hall from the secret room where they stack the bleached and dusty bones of all those mouthy congressional aides, and despite the Republicans calling 11 votes, holding a major appropriations hearing, doing bed-checks and holding a no-cover-charge kegger, making it difficult to attend, Conyers held a forum that called for a congressional inquiry into the aforementioned “Downing Street Memo”.

Damn skippy, my brother!

The heady aroma of impeachment was in the air, like blood on the water, and for once the Democrats realized “Holy crap! We’re sharks!” And the feeding frenzy is scheduled for real soon now.

Is Bush a criminal? Are you asking my opinion?

Hell yes, he is. He misled the country and deceived us into going into a useless and unnecessary war. In my opinion, he’s guilty of high treason and over 1,700 counts of murder.

So, about damn time. I’m sharpening my pitchfork and stockpiling torches even as I type this. Out of the village, monster!

Maybe there’s a New Age of Reason on the horizon. Captain Freedom Fries a.k.a Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC) is now calling for a deadline for troop removal from Iraq, and he’s not the only GOP-ster to say the same thing. AND, in a rousing 238 to 187 (meaning some Republicans voted with the majority on this issue) an amendment to restrict the USA PATRIOT Act from searching libraries and bookstore records. There’s a rising sentiment to shut down Gitmo unless we can be decent human beings with our prisoners and not engage in torture and religious desecration. The new Summer Fashion statement is: Brains and reason in; jackboots OUT!

So maybe my absence was not such a bad thing. So much bad, but for once some good to talk about. The Reign of Stupid is nearing its end, perhaps.

Well, let’s not get ahead of ourselves…we have til 2008, after all. Two and a half years is a long time in which a monkey can steer a car into a minefield. We’re still largely hated across the globe because of our arrogant bullying, we’re still regarded as stupid backwards redneck ‘tards across the globe because we somehow not only gave the monkey a gun, but then gave it to him again, and our gas is finally stabilizing at $Outrageous.99 a gallon rather than $AreYouEffin’KiddingMeWhatIsThis1977?.99 a gallon.

And don’t forget Bush still wants to appoint as ambassador to the United Nations a man who said the United Nations was completely unnecessary. A man foaming at the mouth to “reform” it, whatever that means. It’s starting to sound like a Western…”I’m gonna reform this here governing body if’n I gotta kill every damn Injun in the territory to do it.”

But, hey…maybe the U.N. needs reform and maybe Bolton’s just the savvy diplomat to do it. After all, don’t we want a man who wrangled and manipulated to get access to high-level national security intercepts to spy on other officials and get them to back his warmongering policies to schmooze and charm the representatives of other nations? What better way to say “We’re ready to cooperate in an atmosphere of good willing and bonhomie” than to sidle up to the delegate from France and whisper “Hey, Henri…nice suit. So, I understand you like hookers dressed as Hilary Clinton…”

Better yet, why don’t we just load G. Gordon Liddy with seven pounds of crack cocaine, a loaded assault rifle and a post-hypnotic suggestion to “paint the General Assembly crimson”?

As it turns out, Bush may just send Bolton to the U.N. anyway under a recess appointment. Because when the Will of the People doesn’t jibe with W’s vision of a Candyland Fantasy World where everyone loves him and he’s always right and his mommy calls him a “smart boy”, well, the best thing is to say “screw the people, I’ll do what I want” and then go drink some Ovaltine and desultorily play with your Tinkertoys. And mutter to yourself that all those mean kids are just jealous anyway.

What else? Oh, don’t you just love that cute Porter Goss? He recently claimed he has an “excellent idea of where [Osama bin Laden] is.” Yeah, I’m sure. “Well, we checked the attic and the pantry and we’re pretty sure he can’t fit under the sink, so the only place left he could hide would be in the closet in the master bedroom. Ollie ollie oxen free!”

And when asked if the United States could possibly go to war again based on false intelligence, Mr. Goss’ response was “I would not agree to surmise that America has gone to war based on false intelligence. I would say that the right question is: Should America be checking out threats to America? The answer is yes. And will we find some threats were more talk than real? Yes, we will.”

So in a couple of months when Bush pushes his case to invade Erromango because “I swear they were lookin’ all shifty” then we should whole-heartedly commit more of our troops to a useless, pointless and wasteful extended operation. Just in case.

To further justify possible future action in yet another Middle Eastern country, Congressman Curt Weldon [R-PA] has this to say about bin Laden’s whereabouts: “I’m confident that I know for sure he’s been in and out of Iran, where Ayatollah Khomenei has been protecting him with his Revolutionary Guard.”

The CIA feels differently. Weldon’s sooper-sekrit intelligence source, “Ali” (no, I’m not kidding) has been completely dismissed by The Company as not “the slightest bit credible” and as “a waste of time and resources.”

I just love that bit about being protected by the Ayatollah and his Revolutionary Guard, though. Everyone knows bin Laden is in Latvia, sequestered deep in Castle Doom and surrounded by a phalanx of killer Doombots at all times. Pshaw.

So the world is still wacky, the United States government still seems to be largely controlled by brain-dead wackaloons and I appear to be back, at least for now.

At least I’ll have something to write about.

SO DECLARES DOOM!

You’ll All Pay is written, on occasion, when the planets are in the correct alignment, by Joe Conat. You can tell him to get his head back in the damn game, I mean, your daughter’s cute and all but, dude, there’s a whole world goin’ to Hell in a handbasket right outside your window, would you get crackin’ for the love of all that’s holy? here.

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